Greece, through time, in all of the difficult times that it
underwent, managed to find the strength to stand upright and cope with
storms.

The critical historical juncture faced today by our people is not unprecedented.

We have passed in our history equally bad, perhaps even worse periods
of time. Periods during which the isolation of the country seemed
depressing and insuperable. We managed, however, to pull through.

And we pulled through, mainly thanks to self-sacrifice, unparalleled
morale, fighting spirit and determination of a people, who put above
everything else its survival, its dignity and justice.

This is the great historical challenge that we face today.

Today, the rescue of the country is closely linked to the rejection
of insubordination, to our desire of enduring in difficulties and to our
decision of connecting our great “NO”s with our unwavering effort for a
new and progressive path of reconstruction, recovery and prospective
rebirth of the country.

If only an agreement could be found that would represent an “honest
compromise” – although this term is inappropriate, fluid and fits
everything and nothing.

Nevertheless, the so-called partners and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) do not ask from the
government for an agreement that respects fundamentally the survival of
the Greek people and the recent radical popular verdict.

What the cruellest and most ruthless vested centres in Berlin,
Brussels and the IMF want from the country is “earth and water”. They
are asking for subordination and surrender. They are asking for new
measures of pension and wage cuts, sellout of the country, new taxes
and further deregulations.

Our government will not bow down, neither will it surrender.

SYRIZA will never co-sign new measures at the expense of the working
classes. SYRIZA will not accept an agreement that would be incompatible
to its radical commitments.

If Berlin, Brussels and the IMF believe that they will either drag
the country and the government into submission, or they will push us
towards collapsing, they are making a double mistake. Neither the one,
nor the other will happen.

If our “partners” and the IMF believe that they will blackmail us
using the refusal of financing as a weapon, and that they will terrorise
the Greek people forever using the “boogey man” of default and of a
national currency, they are woefully deluded.

Greece has many other alternative paths [it can choose from] and it
can have potential without financing from the EU and the IMF, and
without the European Central Bank liquidity provided by the drop to the banks.

Greece can cope against the “water torture” applied by the EU and the
IMF, and which chokes the economy and leads to the suffocation of
households.

While Greece can have alternative solutions, something similar is not
true for the EU, but also the IMF, and their predatory policies.

The problems that the EU – which is reeling – will have to face from
an alternative progressive Greece will be enormous, and might prove to
be non-manageable and insurmountable.

Socks can be unpicked even by one point.

Greece, together with Cyprus, comprise of the south-eastern side of Europe, at the boundary of three continents.

The political and geostrategic weight of the country is critical, if not essential.

Our economic dimension, also, is not negligible in qualitative possibilities.

It is difficult to conceive of a European Union, even in appearance,
without Greece. The geopolitical vacuum will be tragic. As it is also
out of time and place for some to think that the economic repercussions
of a Greek moratorium, or even more of a Grexit, will be politically and
economically insignificant for the future of the European Union.

Greece will be able to cope, and slowly-slowly come back to its feet,
after a rupture with the European Union that will be imposed by its
dominant circles. The EU, however, will possibly – however paradoxical
this seems – be subjected to a grave, and even mortal wound, in such a
case.

Europe has every interest to truly support Greece, and not to remain
attached to intransigent, religious-type neoliberal orthodoxies and
neocolonial hegemonies.

Βesides, the harsh neoliberal path blindly followed by the eurozone and the
EU will cause a deep economic paralysis and decline in the euro-united
front.

On the other hand, the dominance of Germany in the EU has provided
the latter with the appearance of an uncompromising Germanic Europe,
which sees next to the German monetary and economic domination the
American politico-military umbrella prevailing.

In any case, however, Greece must play a pioneering role through its
path and its contribution for a progressive subversion in Europe. The
neoliberal monetarist Germanic Europe and a eurozone that has dogmatic
architecture, constructed for the “lobby” of the North, have no future.
This Europe will be drowning in its economic stagnation, its growing
oppositions and controversies, while it will be multiplying the number
of social divisions and poverty.

The progressive subversion in Greece can be the first step of a
larger reversal in Europe. An overturn in our country does not imply
only a new progressive path with socialist horizons, but also the
discharge of our country from the shackles of servitude and dependence,
and the implementation of a new, genuine, independent and
multidimensional foreign and economic policy.

The position of the government to encourage the construction of a
gas pipeline on Greek soil – which will begin from the Greek-Turkish borders
and go all the way to our borders with former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and which will transport
Russian natural gas via an underwater pipeline through the Black Sea –
is included in this logic.

Such a large construction project, as long as it materialised, would
have extremely important energy and fiscal-related benefits for the
country, while it would open a qualitatively new chapter in the
development of Greek-Russian relations, which could provide a new form
to the region and Europe.

Greece, having SYRIZA as its trunk, with the Trans Adriatic Pipeline that brings Azeri gas
and with the new pipeline that brings Russian gas, but also through a
series of other efforts and initiatives, wants to become a pluralistic
energy node of cooperation, peace and stability in the region and in
Europe. For a Europe without new Cold War-like walls, without the logic
of isolating countries, without hegemonic dominations, without
neocolonial attitudes, in which new values of equal cooperation and
co-development of the people, the countries (in between them) and the
neighboring regions will exist.

Greece can and must open multidimensional horizons of economic and
political relations that will form new footholds, not only in Russia,
but also in China, Brazil, Latin America, India, the Arab world, the
African zone and, of course, the area of the Mediterranean bowl.

SYRIZA’s Greece will stop being an American-Atlantic plot [of sea],
German fief or satellite state of the US-Israeli Middle East axis
and is not a country that will be offered for sale, privatising its
strategic sectors of economy, its strategic operations, its strategic
infrastructures and its strategic networks.

Under the framework of the new foreign and economic policy, Greece
rejects the dichotomous and vassal co-pooling of the Aegean sea, either
with the US or with Turkey, or with both of them together, while it
seeks to exploit its mineral wealth and potential hydrocarbon reserves
based on international law and its national interest.

Exactly following international law, and especially the Law of the
Seas, we want the problems in the Aegean Sea to be solved, so as for the
latter to become a sea of peace, a bridge of friendship and cooperation
for the benefit of the countries and the people who border this
beautiful sea.

Greece, in this very difficult time, in one of the most difficult
times in its history, is facing a historic challenge: to turn the crisis
and the tragedy into opportunity and possibility.

We can win this bet if we isolate the “fifth column” that was always
the curse of this place. The “fifth column” of the incumbent foreign
centres, of the oligarchs, of the dominant media and of the domestic
political servitude towards them. We can succeed, if we showcase unity
as a people, fighting spirit and tenacity, a will for large
demonstrations, resistance and strength against the temporary
adversities, thinking of the progressive rectifier future that we must
build for the generations to come.